Six years since the Beacon’s start

A half-dozen years ago, the Rochester Beacon was no more than an idea. That changed on Oct. 18, 2018—our first day of publication.

With the approach of our sixth anniversary tomorrow, it’s a good time to look back at how far we’ve come and ahead to our plans for the Beacon.

As we have often noted, the Beacon’s cofounders did not underestimate the challenge we faced. Most of us were veterans of the newspaper business and had witnessed firsthand the industry’s precipitous decline over the last few decades. We launched the Beacon with the intent to publish new content each weekday, but honestly had doubts about achieving that very modest goal.

Yet as the days and weeks passed, we continued to deliver—and the Beacon’s readership grew. In the summer of 2022, a few months before our fourth anniversary, the Beacon’s website reached 1 million total pageviews. By the end of this month, we will reach 2 million total pageviews—cutting in half the time required to add the second 1 million.

In an era when newspaper readership continues to relentlessly decline, we are continuing to grow both website users and pageviews as well as subscribers to our Weekly Review email, which is delivered each Thursday.

In marking this anniversary, I’d like to thank everyone who has been part of the Beacon’s success so far, beginning with you: our readers. We believed that those who call Greater Rochester home would welcome a new digital publication dedicated to responsible, high-quality journalism and open-minded conversation and debate about the most important issues facing our community. Over the last six years, that faith has been rewarded.

Our journalists work every day to bring you narrative journalism, analysis and opinion grounded in facts. As I wrote the day the Beacon launched, we strive for relevance, diversity and depth versus random facts, stereotypes and clichés. (We are still guided by our Mission Statement.) And unlike many other news organizations whose websites have paywalls, we do not charge for access to our content. (If you have not done so already, you can sign up to receive our free Weekly Review email, which provides handy links to each article posted on the website.)

As you probably know, we are not in this to make money. The Beacon is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit that in its early days was an all-volunteer operation. Today, we compensate all writers and photographers on assignment, but we continue to run a very lean (and virtual) operation. Still, we have expenses—which also include insurance, and website and email costs—that must be paid. For that reason, we have worked from day one to create a sustainable business model for high-quality local journalism in the digital era.

The core of our model is donations from community members. Our biggest annual fundraising campaign—NewsMatch—once again will start Nov. 1 and run until Dec. 31. It is a national matching-gift campaign that matches up to $1,000 per individual donor to eligible nonprofit news organizations, all of which belong to the Institute for Nonprofit News, a membership group of some 450 media organizations (up from 100 when we joined).

The generous support of corporate sponsors is another key element in our model. We are very grateful for the long-term support of Bond, Schoeneck & King, lead sponsor of our website and weekly email, and also a sponsor of many Beacon events, and Tompkins, which joined as a website and weekly email sponsor in our fourth year.

Nationwide, charitable foundations provide a significant portion of funding received by nonprofit news organizations. Over the last 12 months, the Beacon has been the recipient of vital institutional support. We received a $30,000 grant from the ESL Charitable Foundation to support Community Chronicles: A Solutions-Based Storytelling Project. (For an example of that work, see “The affordable housing challenge” by Managing Editor Smriti Jacob and Contributing Writer Jacob Schermerhorn.) The William & Sheila Konar Foundation’s $25,000 grant for general operating expenses has helped us boost our coverage, especially in the areas of health care and education.

In addition, the Glover Crask Charitable Trust matched $10,000 of the funds raised by the Beacon in last fall’s NewsMatch campaign. (Individual NewsMatch donations, national matching funds and the Glover Crask grant totaled more than $50,000.) Most recently, the Beacon has received $10,000 from NextCorps to expand coverage of entrepreneurship and innovation—such as this week’s lead story on business starts.

We are also very grateful for the time and expertise the Beacon’s external board members share with us. The board includes former Rochester mayor Thomas Richards; Hélène Biandudi Hofer, owner of media group HBH Enterprises; Alex Amorese, a commercial real estate associate at CB Richard Ellis; and two new members: Mark Armbruster, CEO of Armbruster Capital Management; and Allison Frisch, assistant professor of journalism and documentary studies at Ithaca College. We also want to thank Kimberly Jones, president and CEO of Butler/Till, who recently stepped down due to other obligations; we benefitted greatly from her energy, ideas and steadfast support over the last several years.

Thanks to the Beacon’s journalists, we annually post more than 250 articles and features that span a very wide range of issues and topics including education, economics, innovation, health care and science, arts and culture, government, politics, justice, and public safety. The two most-read website stories since Oct. 18, 2023 are “The code that divides Fairport” by contributing writer Mike Costanza, which examined the village’s rezoning controversy; and “The road ahead for Doorley” by senior writer Will Astor, which analyzed the potential consequences of District Attorney Sandra Doorley’s behavior toward a Webster police officer in a traffic stop.

Some other well-read work that illustrates the breadth of our coverage: “The plight of private practice doctors” by Will Astor; “In donations, Harris vs. Trump is no contest” by Jacob Schermerhorn; and “Upheaval in the city schools,” another story by Jacob. Among articles by guest contributors, the one with the largest readership was “Rochester is welcoming immigrant families—and growing our economy” by Robert Duffy, CEO of Greater Rochester Chamber of Commerce.

In addition to Jacob Schermerhorn, our contributing writers include Justin O’Connor (who wrote to the business starts lead story); Evan Coleman (“UR’s tech response to the nursing shortage” is an example of his work); and Justin Murphy, former reporter for the Democrat and Chronicle and now research and communications coordinator for Our Local History (see his first piece for us, “The lasting impact of Rochester’s world-renowned plant nurseries,” on a new book by Camden Burd).

As the Beacon starts its seventh year, we are excited about some new initiatives. I have already mentioned one of them—expanded coverage of entrepreneurship and innovation. In addition, we are working to build the Oasis Project, our internship program launched in 2024 and led by Managing Editor Smriti Jacob and board member Allison Frisch; it reflects our belief in the importance of fostering the next generation of local journalists. And we have been taking part in the Google News Initiative Fundamentals Lab, which provides training and support to strengthen the nonprofit news business model. We have some other things in the works too; keep an eye out for word on those in the weeks ahead.

Finally, here is something else to look for soon: publication of the “Gift Shop of Gratitude.” Scheduled for release in November, this book by Peter Lovenheim, our longtime Washington correspondent, grew out of Peter’s December 2022 piece in the Beacon titled “Exit through the gift shop.” The book’s message is one we share. As I wrote a year ago, on the Beacon’s fifth anniversary, we are “filled with gratitude for everyone who has made this possible.”

Paul Ericson is Rochester Beacon executive editor. The Beacon welcomes comments and letters from readers who adhere to our comment policy including use of their full, real name. Submissions to the Letters page should be sent to [email protected].